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When's the last time you went to see a band that had you jumping up and down in your chairs?
A rock 'n' roll band so full of life and energy that it was impossible to sit still?
There's a band in Edmonton now that has that kind of hot-damn excitement and energy.
It is The Fuse.
The band is big in their home town of Winnipeg, where a huge following of fans turn up at every club and dance they play.
Here, it is being tested — The Fuse is playing in taverns where nobody has heard of them.
The beer hall audiences aren't quite sure what to think. After all, a rock 'n' roll band that puts the "roll" back in "rock" hasn't been heard in Alberta for many years.
Yet The Fuse is very different from most rock bands.
For one thing, the musicians are young.
Guitarists Jeff Hatcher and David Briggs, both 21, are the grandpas of the band. Except for Briggs, the players are from one family.
Paul Hatcher, 19, is on drums, and Don Hatcher, 18, has just taken on the bass-playing duties.
"Don just turned 18," says Jeff. "It's a good thing, otherwise we wouldn't be allowed to play bars."
Jeff adds that the former bass player, Johnny Loiselle, decided "to be a knob" and go to university and get married.
The four-man band goes for old 1960s music, mixed with their own songs and new material from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe.
The set I heard last week had some great oldies but goodies — "Can't Explain" and "Substitute" from the early Who; "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All Of The Night" by the Kinks: "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones, and a couple of Beatles' tunes — "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Money."
In between the old rock 'n' roll came the Costello and Springsteen tunes.
The entire performance is first-rate.
Briggs and Hatcher are very good on their guitars.
Briggs can put out a screamer of a rock solo. Short, tight, and to the point.
Paul Hatcher pushes the band with a clean, untarnished drum sound. He never gets sloppy, lazy or slow.
Don Hatcher sticks to the background in bass, looking like a baby-faced Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones did — 14 years ago.
For a young band, The Fuse has already got quite a reputation.
It all happened when Elvis Costello turned up to jam with them at a Winnipeg hotel after he had finished his concert in that city.
When Costello and his own band then took over the stage for several songs, Jeff Hatcher was invited to play with them.
"Our manager had told Costello about us," says Jeff. "He came down, discussed some songs with us, and then played. We weren't nervous. Costello really is kinda shy. Clever though."
According to reports from Winnipeg, Costello was most impressed with the young musicians.
How did Fuse avoid playing all the top-40 material usually necessary on the club circuit?
"It wasn't that we were consciously trying to be a New Wave band," offers Jeff. "We just wanted to do stuff that we liked.
"Hard rock to us sounds pretty awful. Mindless, strutting stuff — not exciting at all. When we first started, we all liked early rock 'n' roll... we didn't want to be a rock band, we wanted to be a rock 'n' ROLL band."
Springsteen was the only top-40 musician The Fuse admired.
"We heard him say in an interview that the only act he'd pay to see was Graham Parker.
"So we bought Heat Treatment. Parker and Costello have always been lumped together, so that took us to Costello. He sounded really good the first time we heard him."
"Most bands forget that music has nothing to do with recording," offers David Briggs, who's been sitting listening to the conversation between sets at the Convention Inn West, where the band played last week.
"Or all they do is calculate how much money they can make."
The Fuse aren't obsessed, but already they've attracted attention from record companies. In January, the band put together a four song Extended-Play (EP) disc for their Winnipeg fans.
But being in Edmonton has brought them down to earth. "Diseases travel faster than styles in Canada," comments Jeff wryly. "We had tons of reaction in Winnipeg — it spoils you. Coming here is like starting from scratch all over again."
The Fuse plan on being a unit for some time. "It feels good," says Jeff. "Heck, I couldn't play in another band. I mean, this is all my family!"
Some of Edmonton's beer-drinking crowd doesn't like the Fuse's brand of rock 'n' roll.
"People who don't like us say so. They tell us to 'take a break,' and other really clever lines," says Jeff.
But word has been getting around about Fuse, and every night they play, more people come who want to hear rock 'n' roll at its best.
The Fuse are playing at the Beverly Crest tavern until March 3, before playing some high school dances on the weekend of March 16 and 17.
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